I would not want anyone to get the idea that I have had
or have a total quality marriage at home and work. In fact I am still in
the process of continuing to learn how to continuously improve my work and
my marriage. I expect to continue continuously learning as I go along. The
truth is that I spent more time on my marriage at work, so that I could afford
my marriage at home. I did learn some things at work that helped at home.
I am learning some things in my spiritual journey that helps at work and
at home. I am encouraging everyone who reads this to take it easy and be
gentle on themselves and have fun with this information. Learning takes place
better when we are really having fun.

When I worked for the U. S. Navy, we started with a continuous
improvement process called Total Quality Management [TQM]. The Navy then
changed TQM to Total Quality Leadership [TQL]. The term leadership was an
improvement over management. Management is where everything is under control.
Leadership is where no control is needed because of the healthy leadership.

The ways I was formally taught leadership in Navy courses was very healthy.
In fact I saw a continuous improvement over the years on how bosses started
to grow into leaders. One factor was the fact that the headquarters training
group continued to give world class courses on the fundamentals of leadership
in all their courses. I saw that their courses had a positive effect, over
time.

The good news is that everyone can be a leader without conflict. The bad
news is that you can only have one boss or you have conflicts. You can have
a healthy team working, when everyone is leading and everyone is not bossing.
That is what makes a Total Quality Marriage, where ever there is a team of
leaders and no boss.

That is not what the world generally teaches. The world often teaches bossing
and blaming, the opposite of leadership. Leadership is all about learning
caring, leading, laughing, and respecting.

Part of what the Navy taught, was derived from W. Edward Deming, and he had
some profound information. His information had revolutionized Japan, so much
that we were losing market share to their companies. Then our companies decided
to listen to what Deming had been telling them all along, and we began to
improve our market position.

Deming had 14 points and a suggestion to learn profound wisdom and psychology.
The most fundamental of Deming's 14 points was to drive out fear. Government
and business were not ready to listen to something like "Perfect love casts
out all fear." So, he gave them something to do, that they could understand,
driving something out. At some point they are going to need to grow to accept
unconditional positive regard as something that works. The reason that they
need to learn is because unconditional respect is more productive and works
a lot better. Organizations become weller, wiser, and more willing as they
learn unconditional positive regard instead of blaming. Unconditional respect
and fun is showing up in the bottom lines. That is why it works at home,
as well as work. The bottom line is that showing respect and leading in
cooperation, works better than bossing and coercion.

The fundamentals of what really worked in the Navy and Japan and U. S. companies
are fundamental of what works anywhere. The fundamentals that really work
at work, will really work at home. The fundamentals that do not work at work,
will also not work at home.

The best expression of the difference between leading and bossing I have
found is in the preface to William Glasser's book Quality Schools. It
goes like this:

"A boss drives. A leader leads.

A boss relies on authority. A leader relies on cooperation.

A boss says "I". A leader says "We."

A boss creates fear. A leader creates confidence.

A boss knows how. A leader shows how.

A boss creates resentment. A leader breeds enthusiasm.

A boss fixes blame. A leader fixes mistakes.

A boss makes work drudgery. A leader makes work interesting."

Anyone wanting to do real team working and team leading would do well to
refer to these differences often. The lessons in Quality Schools are
the same lessons for marriage, church, work and any organizations. I recommend
this book for anyone interested in improving their leadership and their spiritual
growth.

"A boss drives. A leader leads"

How does one lead? One way is by example. I always heard
what my parents did, not what they said. People can easily change what they
say. They do not easily change the patterns of what they do, until they grow
some more. Growing some more means learning how to give unconditional positive
regard some more, so that we can reduce negative emotions and fears. Then
we will have more loving in our leading. Both the old and the new testaments
told of the wisdom in loving our "enemies". It does not matter what your
current position is on your team, you can lead by example from where you
are. What way do you want to lead in positive regard? What ways do you want
to be lead by positive regard?

"A boss relies on authority. A leader relies on cooperation."

We have been trained to be competitive by our sports, by cutthroat businesses,
by the marriages we saw growing up, by the stories we have been taught. Learning
to cooperate with what is going on is a challenge. In fact it takes
competition to compete to cooperate. We can take all of our training on
competition and use it to our advantage by competing to cooperate. You can
foster more cooperation from what ever position you are in now. How can we
not cooperate with what is going on since someone suggested giving thanks
for everything? Where does it say that? What ways do you want to cooperate
and get cooperation?

"A boss says "I". A leader says "We.""

Learning to say "We" and to mean it, is a challenge. One way to
do this is to think win - win. Having your intention of finding a way for
everyone to win is one secret of making our team a "We." It does not matter
where you are in the "We", when everyone wins there is less friction. When
there is less friction the "We" becomes more efficient. The "We" team becomes
more efficient and this shows up in the bottom lines of more fun, freedom,
caring and abundance. Who else has identified with us and took on our stuff?
In what ways do you want to say "We"?

"A boss creates fear. A leader creates confidence."

How can one create confidence? One way is to build up the members of your
team. The best way to start is to learn how to create confidence in your
self. The strange thing I have learned is that the more forgiving I do of
myself and others the more confident I become. Who recommended forgiving
a lot of times? Once you learn how to forgive you can lead by demonstrating
confidence in your self and then in others. The secret is that you can not
create confidence until you have created it in yourself. The other secret
is that the more you forgive the stronger you are at standing up for yourself
and others. Once you have more confidence your team will catch more confidence.
This will continue to reduce our fears and negative emotions. What ways do
you want to create confidence?

"A boss knows how. A leader shows how."

How does a leader show how? Have there not been leaders and lovers that showed
us how? Who are they for you? One way is to continue to learn how. Our challenge
is to use the talents of all our team members. A boss may think that they
know how, but they are missing all that their team could add. So one way
to show how is to learn how to value the valuable contributions possible
from everyone. That includes your boss, even if they have not grown into
a leader yet. What ways do you want to show how?

"A boss creates resentment. A leader breeds enthusiasm."

How can you breed enthusiasm, when there is resentment? There is enthusiasm
when there is no resentment. One way is to first resolve conflicts within
yourself. Do you know someone who has more of their internal conflicts resolved?
Are you ready to ask him/her to be your mentor? Are you ready to listen?
Are you ready to discuss the matter with him/her? Then you can begin to resolve
conflicts on your teams. The more conflicts you resolve within yourself,
the better you will be at resolving conflicts on your teams. What ways do
you want to breed enthusiasm? How do you want to resolve your inner conflicts?

"A boss fixes blame. A leader fixes mistakes."

This is a real challenge, to focus on fixing mistakes, while most
of the world is focusing on fixing blame. It helps to know that everyone
is doing the best they can, with what they know now and what they do
not know now, that they do not know
now. That means that we are all unconscious of part of what
drives us. Our conscious unconscious that we are unconscious of, causes most
of the negativity in our world. We are helpless to avoid mistakes, until
we become conscious of what we do not know now. That means
that the only mistake we need to work on, is to become more conscious of
what we do not know now, that we do
not know now. One way to know more of what we do not know is
to learn how to forgive our self, others, and whatever else we blame. A leader
once said: "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."? What ways
do you want to fix mistakes and become more conscious?

"A boss makes work drudgery. A leader makes work interesting."

How can you make things interesting? One way is to find what everyone is
interested in and then use that as a part of your work and your home life.
That means getting to know everyone better. That could be quite interesting,
getting to know everyone better. What ways do you want to make work and home
interesting? Who do you know that knows you totally and forgives you totally?

The last and most important thing to remember is that any Total Quality Marriage
is about a continuous improvement process. It is not about making anyone
wrong for not already having a "Total Quality Marriage", right now. It is
not about making anyone wrong, for not already being a leader. It is about
a continuous improvement process of growing from acting like a boss to growing
into acting like a leader. An employee as well as a marriage partner are
equally responsible for showing true leadership. We do not need a boss's
position to show true leadership. If fact it may be harder to be a leader
in a boss's position.

Keep in mind that we grew up in a world that taught more about bossing than
leading. So take it easy. The leaders of our spiritual journey have patience
with us. Pass it on.

Copyright 1996/7 by R. M. Foster.

(Michael Foster MA has a Spiritual Skills Coaching business called:
"Recovery by Discovery". He does Therapy for Therapist and TQL Therapy for
Teams. He publishes a coaches tip each day on his Internet
pages at
http://recoverybydiscovery.com.)